ICQ Will Shut Down On June 26 This YearIn many ways, ICQ has always been a bit of a curiosity. It was one of the first major instant messenger clients of the 1990s. It saw broad uptake alongside the likes of AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger. Yet, it outlasted both of them despite not being attached to an industrial juggernaut like AOL or Microsoft. After 27 years, however, it seems that the last petal will drop, with the shutdown of ICQ announced on the ICQ website for June 26, 2024.
Originally launched by an Israeli company, Mirabilis, in June of 1996, it took the Internet by storm, leading to AOL buying Mirabilis in June of 1998. Under the wing of AOL, ICQ kept growing its user base until it was sold to Digital Sky Technologies (now VK, which operates Mail.ru) in 2010. Around this time, the likes of Facebook and Google, with their own messaging solutions, came onto the scene, leaving ICQ to flounder. Ultimately, ICQ found a new home in the Russian market as a mobile messaging system until its imminent shutdown. Users are urged to move to the VK Messenger instead.

The demise of ICQ obviously led to a blast of nostalgia on sites like Hacker News, even though it has lost relevance in the West for many years. We’re sad to see this chapter end and will mourn the demise of our UINs (RIP, 61007952) along with our fellow compatriots in the usual IRC channels.
This is what happens when you depend on the grid. Going off the grid doesn’t have to look homemade, either.

How Do You Fill The 1N34 Void?The germanium point contact diode, and almost every semiconductor device using germanium, is now obsolete. There was a time when almost every television or radio would have contained one or two of them, but the world has moved on from both analogue broadcasting and discrete analogue electronics in its lower-frequency RF circuitry. [TSBrownie] is taking a look at alternatives to the venerable 1N34A point-contact diode in one of the few places a point-contact diode makes sense, the crystal radio.
In the video below the break, he settles on a slightly more plentiful Eastern European D9K as a substitute after trying a silicon rectifier (awful) and a Schottky diode (great in theory, not so good in practice). We’ve trodden this path in the past and settled on a DC bias to reduce the extra forward voltage needed for a 1N4148 silicon diode to conduct because, like him, we found a Schottky disappointing.
The 1N34 is an interesting component, and we profiled its inventor a few years ago. Meanwhile, it’s worth remembering that sometimes, we just have to let old parts go.

Families of Uvalde shooting victims sue Activision and MetaThe families of victims of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas are suing Activision and Meta, as well as gun manufacturer Daniel Defense. The families bringing the lawsuits are represented by attorney Josh Koskoff, who previously won a settlement from Remington for the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims. The suit against […]
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Ocean Plate Is A FREE Plate Reverb Plugin by Lotus Sounds
Developer Lotus Sounds has released Ocean Plate, a free reverb plugin for Windows and Mac. Who doesn’t love a new reverb plugin? I’m prone to downloading and testing quite a few, and this is likely one of my favorite effects to add a track. That aside, my plugin folder always has room for a new [...]
View post: Ocean Plate Is A FREE Plate Reverb Plugin by Lotus Sounds

WOMEX 24 legacy programme announced Manchester Music City, the host partner for WOMEX 24 have announced further details of their legacy programme, WE, THE LEADERS.

Spot ETH ETFs approved, crypto bill passes US House, and more: Hodler’s Digest, May 19-25U.S. SEC approves spot Ether ETFs, FIT21 crypto bill goes to the Senate, and Sam Bankman-Fried held in Oklahoma.

Scarlett Johansson brought receipts to the OpenAI controversyWelcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. OpenAI announced this week that it’s removing Sky, one of the voices used by its new GPT-4o model, after users found it sounded eerily similar to Scarlett Johansson’s AI character […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

How A DOS Format Blunder Revealed Some Priceless Source CodeAs those of us who worked in the consumer software world back when physical media was king can attest, when a master disc has been sent for duplication and distribution there is no turning back from whatever code is in the hands of thousands of users. Usually such worries were confined to bugs or inadvertently sending out pre-release software versions, but [Lance Ewing] is here with the story of how Sierra On-Line once inadvertently released most of the source code for their game engine.
If you have some 720k floppy disk versions of the 1988 game Space Quest II, the first disk in the set appears to have nothing out of the ordinary, but a closer look reveals that the free space on the disk reported by DOS is greater than its used space. Diving in to the disk block contents with a hex editor reveals that many of the unused blocks in fact contain C code, and some further detective work allows the recovery of a not-quite complete set of source files for the company’s AGI, or adventure game interpreter. They had been left behind when the original master disk had been emptied by deleting them, rather than by formatting it afresh.
In commercial terms this would in 1988 have been something of a disaster for Sierra had it been discovered at the time, because it was the cornerstone of their success. As it was we’re told the code sat peacefully undetected until 2016, since when it has proved invaluable to those interested in computer game archaeology. Or did it? We’ll never know if a sharp-eyed competitor snagged it, and kept quiet.
Of course, these days, there are game engines that are open source. Some of them are very modern. Others… not so much.

Function Loops Releases FREE Tech House Drums Plugin
Function Loops has released a new free drum machine plugin called Tech House Drums for Mac and Windows. Function Loops has previously released many sample packs, of all kinds, for EDM, psytrance, trap, hyperpop, you name it. They also released a free Psytrance Bass ROMpler plugin. If you’re a fan of their previous releases, it’s time [...]
View post: Function Loops Releases FREE Tech House Drums Plugin

A Look At 3D Printed Shoes: Hybrid, Fully Printed and Plain WeirdIn the eternal quest to find more things to do with 3D printers, shoes have been in the spotlight for a while now. But how practical is additive manufacturing in this field really?
Adidas Ultra 4D running shoes with 3D printed midsole.
This is where [Joel Telling] of the 3D Printing Nerd YouTube channel puts in his two cents, with a look at a range of commercial and hobbyist ideas and products. Naturally, the first thing that likely comes to mind at the words ‘3D printed shoes’ is something akin to the plastic version of wooden clogs, or a more plastic-y version of the closed-cell resin of Crocs.
First on the list are the white & spiky Kaiju Gojira shoes from Fused Footwear, printed from TPE filament to order. TPE is softer to the touch and more flexible than TPU, but less durable. In contrast the Adidas Ultra 4D running shoes (from their 4D range) are a hybrid solution, with a standard rubber outsole, 3D printed midsole with complex structures and mostly fabric top part. Effectively a Nike Air in initial impression, perhaps.
Meanwhile ‘3D printed’ shoes ordered off Chinese store Shein turned out to be not 3D printed at all, while [Joel] seems to be really into fully 3D printed shoes from Zellerfeld, who appear to be using TPU. While it’s hard to argue about taste, the Adidas shoes might appeal to most people. Especially since they’d likely let your feet breathe much better, a fact appreciated not only by yourself, but also family members, roommates and significant others. So which of these (partially) 3D printed shoes would you pick, or do you have some other favorite?

Last Week in D.I.Y. & Indie Music: Synching lyrics • TikTok’s Fan Spotlight • Music Marketing • MoreLast week, our tips and advice for the independent, do-it-yourselfers out there covered how to prepare for a music marketing meeting, how to make the most from live gigging, and much. Continue reading
The post Last Week in D.I.Y. & Indie Music: Synching lyrics • TikTok’s Fan Spotlight • Music Marketing • More appeared first on Hypebot.

New music industry’s week in review: Live Nation vs DoJ • Sony vs AI • Songwriters vs Spotify • MoreIt was a busy week by any definition, and the music industry was no exception. The US DoJ announced that they want to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster, Sony. Continue reading
The post New music industry’s week in review: Live Nation vs DoJ • Sony vs AI • Songwriters vs Spotify • More appeared first on Hypebot.

Outland by The Very Loud Indeed Co. As its name suggests, Outland: Dark Scoring Drones comes packed with sounds well suited to crime, drama and horror scores.

AudioScape range now available in the UK AudioScapes popular range of outboard gear can now be purchased directly in the UK.

Kubernik: 'Dreamsville: Henry Mancini, Peter Gunn, and Music for TV Noir' Now Out!Dreamsville: Henry Mancini, Peter Gunn, and Music for TV Noir Now Out! 

By Harvey Kubernik 

BearManor Media has just published a terrific 318-page book, Dreamsville: Henry Mancini, Peter Gunn, and Music for TV Noirby Jon Burlingame. It’s listed on Amazon. 

amazon.com/Dreamsville-Henry-Mancini...

   Henry Mancini (1924-1994) is renowned as the Oscar- and Grammy-winning composer of such timeless standards as “Moon River” and “Days of Wine and Roses,” as well as such memorable instrumental themes as “The Pink Panther” and “Baby Elephant Walk.” But preceding all of them was the wildly popular theme from Peter Gunn, a television series whose soundtrack won the very first Grammy ever awarded for Album of the Year. 

   Award-winning author and journalist Jon Burlingame chronicles the backstory of Peter Gunn and how its music propelled Mancini to fame and fortune, launching a decades-long collaboration with filmmaker Blake Edwards that encompassed nearly 30 movies, from Breakfast at Tiffany’s to Victor / Victoria and beyond.

   Jon Burlingame (author of six books including The Music of James Bond and Music for Prime Time) relates the untold story of Peter Gunn and its companion series Mr. Lucky; examines the music Mancini wrote for both series and their chart-topping success as modern jazz albums; and tells how this 1958-61 period in TV history set the stage for one of the most remarkable careers of any American composer in the Twentieth Century. For more than 25 years, Burlingame has taught film-music history courses at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. As a producer, Burlingame is responsible for four volumes of music from the classic spy series The Man From U.N.C.L.E, and a series of albums of music from Quinn Martin television shows of the 1960s and ‘70s. 

    In a 2024 emailed correspondence I asked author and music historian Burlingame about Peter Gunn and Mancini. 

    “PETER GUNN was a seminal moment in TV history, the first time that original music for television was taken seriously and would become the basis for best-selling, Grammy-winning soundtrack albums. I have always loved the series, as well as its music, and as the Henry Mancini centennial was coming up in 2024, I wanted to chronicle the show and its music, something that (believe it or not) had never been done in-depth. The research and writing turned out to be one of the most fun projects I’ve ever done, and — I hope — an important addition to the documentation of the career of one of our most important American composers. People forget that Mancini was the first film composer to become a household name, due to his many popular songs and unprecedented role as a pops conductor on the orchestra circuit of the ‘60s, ‘70s and beyond. And PETER GUNN was the show that brought him together with filmmaker Blake Edwards and led, ultimately, to ‘Moon River,’ ‘Days of Wine and Roses,’ the ‘Pink Panther’ theme and so many other classic movie and TV scores.”

   Discovering the Peter Gunn detective series, starring Lola Albright (Edie Hart) and Craig Stevens (Peter Gunn) in 1958 and watching it weekly for a few years with my parents in Culver City, Ca. was mandatory viewing. It ran on NBC-TV from 1958-1960, and 1960-1961 on ABC-TV. 

  Gunn as a private eye who frequented a wharf-side jazz club with a jazz soundtrack backdrop checking out his girlfriend, nightclub singer Edie, while teaming or at odds with his cop pal Lieutenant Jacob, played by Herschel Bernardi.  

    The roaring “Peter Gunn” title theme grabbed me when I first heard it blaring from our TV. Since then, there’s been over 120 cover versions of it, including The Art of Noise Featuring Duane Eddy, King Curtis, Billy Vaughn and his Orchestra, Sandy Nelson, Paul Revere & the Raiders, the Cramps, Denny Freeman and the Cobras, Jeff Beck, Quincy Jones, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and Clarence Clemmons. 

   In 1994, the record label Fresh Sound issued The Jazz Sound from Peter Gunn Music composed by Henry Mancini. The tunes were arranged by Maxwell Davis, Pete Candoli, and Bob Florence.  

    Mancini could be considered the first musician to compose modern jazz for the soundtrack of a filmed television series. 

    "This CD collects most of the material Mancini wrote for the late-'50s, noir-ish TV drama Peter Gunn,” wrote music journalist Stephen Cook in All Music Guide. “The innovative and appropriate jazz soundtrack includes arrangements by Pete Candoli, Maxwell Davis, and Bob Florence and features some of the best Los Angeles session players of the time (Bud Shank, Russ Freeman, Red Mitchell, etc.). Mancini takes up from his earlier soundtrack for Orson Welles' Touch of Evil with brass-heavy, crime jazz tunes like ‘Fallout!’ and rock & roll swing numbers like ‘Spook! and the title-track. The bulk of the material, though, is in a cool, West Coast jazz vein, including brisk swingers like ‘Blue Steel’ and breezy and mid-tempo cuts like ‘Goofin' at the Coffee House.’ Also included are the kind of sleepy-eyed lounge cuts Mancini excelled at, like ‘Dreamsville,’ ‘A Quiet Gass,’ and ‘Soft Sounds.’ This is an excellent collection and one that ranks with Mancini's other fine film and TV work from the '50s and '60s." 

. In 2024 I asked author Andrew Loog Oldham, producer and manager of the Rolling Stones 1963-1967 about the Mancini “Peter Gunn” landmark TV recording moment. “Henry Mancini: The Saul Bass of TV themes.”  

    The great thing about Henry Mancini, known to Hank by friends, was that he was always accessible to students and aspiring music journalists. I recall a 1974 college seminar at RCA Records on Sunset Boulevard, a second home to Mancini and his recording career, often scoring the movies of director/producer Blake Edwards, where he invited the class to a mixing session. 

    I then sat with him at a 1974 Bob Dylan/Band concert at the Forum in Inglewood and we discussed the group Cream and he praised the jazz/rock sounds of the late sixties/early seventies. That same year we found ourselves sitting in the same row at an Andre Previn recital at UCLA’s Royce Hall venue. He re-introduced himself to me, I said hello to Previn, we went to the same junior high school in Los Angeles, and Hank wanted to know if I was going to his yearly event at the Hollywood Bowl. I must have gone for an entire decade. What a bargain for $5.00 to hear his movie and TV catalog under the stars.    

    During 2024, 2 episodes of Peter Gunn are broadcast on Sundays on MeTV.  

    Gain additional insights into this groundbreaking sonic expedition by reading Dreamsville: Henry Mancini, Peter Gunn, and Music for TV Noir.    

Harvey Kubernik is the author of 20 books, including HollywoodShackJob:RockMusicInFilm and on Your Screen, published in 2004 by the University of New 

Mexico Press, and Docs That Rock, Music That Matters,” published in 2020 by Otherworld Cottage Industries.  The post Kubernik: 'Dreamsville: Henry Mancini, Peter Gunn, and Music for TV Noir' Now Out! first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.